


Saltine Crackers and Ginger Ale

by amaradangeli



Series: We Made It [15]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s05e21 Meridian, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 04:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11246376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaradangeli/pseuds/amaradangeli
Summary: This wasn’t just any love.





	Saltine Crackers and Ginger Ale

**Author's Note:**

> Art by Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse
> 
> Beta by Fems and ShoeQueen. My girls. But if you find something wrong with it, it's all me.

Daniel was dead. Or gone. She wasn't, honestly, sure which one it was because after talking to Jack about it there was some question as to what, exactly, had happened. The loss of a teammate was a difficult thing to stomach, but SG-1 was tighter, even, than most teams. It felt like losing a brother. And her stomach hadn't stopped churning since it had happened. 

She sat despondently on Jack's couch. He stood in front of her, a ginger ale in one hand and a package of saltine crackers in the other, looking like he wanted to touch her but like he had forgotten how. She knew his sudden amnesia had to do with how bad he felt about what had happened. And it spoke a lot as to how he, himself, was handling the event. Jack was a tactile person, but his reluctance to touch her likely had something to do with self-flagellation.  

He hadn't said that he felt guilty, but she could read it on his face. There was nothing he did or didn't do, there was nothing he could have done to change things, but Daniel had been his responsibility and he was taking the younger man's death personally. 

She knew that. It was the only thing keeping her from dissolving completely – knowing that he needed her just as much as she needed him. Together, they could prop themselves up into something resembling autonomy. 

"Sit down, Jack," she said quietly, brushing her hand across the couch cushion next to her. 

He moved like everything hurt. She understood. From the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet she felt pain. He sat down next to her, placing the soda and crackers on the coffee table. That was fine, she wasn't feeling like having either at the moment.  

She leaned into him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and then leaned back into the couch, pulling her with him. This was good. This was exactly what she wanted, what she needed – to be close to him. She felt her body start to even out. Her nausea faded, her pain receded, and she knew it had everything to do with the man who was holding her. The pain of losing Daniel was just as acute, but the physical reminders of the loss were fading away in Jack's gentle grip. 

Her body's visceral response to him made her wonder what she'd ever done before him. She knew she was perfectly capable of handling things – even big, devastating things – on her own. But she was utterly relieved that she didn't have to. She wished that she had the freedom to slide into his bed next to him. To let him chase her demons away throughout the night. But as much as she wanted it, she knew not to allow it. There was too much at stake, they were already hiding so much. 

She blew out a breath through pursed lips. He ran his fingertips up and down her arm and pressed a kiss against her forehead. "I don't think it's quite the same as dying." 

"He's completely gone. Ascended... dead... what difference does it make? He's gone and we're going to have to go on without him." 

"He would have had a whole speech about the semantics and the actual difference, you know?" 

"Yeah." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and he tightened the arm he had around her. She sighed. "Wherever he is, I hope he finds what he's looking for." 

Jack pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She wanted so much more. She wanted him to take her to bed. They could get away with that much, she knew. They'd done it before. She'd chosen to not stay all night, she knew he knew why. She also knew that it hurt him when she left. So, limiting their engagements was self-preservation more than anything else. It was also one of the reasons she didn't come for dinner all that often. It wasn't fair to say no. It wasn't right to say yes. She felt trapped. 

And those heavy feelings, mixed with the pain of losing Daniel, made her feel like she was folding in on herself. His arm around her felt like coming up for air and taking deep breath for the first time after diving under water. He was the thing that made it possible, under the circumstances, to breathe – even in the face of tragedy and the helplessness of loving him. 

She turned her face up to him, parted her lips, asked for his kiss. He obliged her, slanting his mouth against hers almost desperately. He needed as much as she needed but his needs were different; she could taste it on him, the need to be inside her. Her entire body clenched in response to his desire. When she pulled back from him, they were both breathing hard and fast, their wicks both lit with a fire that could turn all consuming. 

To be what he needed, though, she had to find a way to shore up against the hurt that was digging deep in her chest. He seemed to understand that because it was he who spoke first. 

"He made a choice. We have to respect that." 

Something about that choice of words made her think about the situation differently. Daniel had a choice between dying and ascending, and he chose to ascend. Sure, she thought, gone seemed so final, but something about ascension didn't feel quite as lonely if she gave it the proper consideration. 

"I do respect his decision. Given the choice between the possibility nothing and the guarantee of something, I'd have chosen something, too." 

"Yeah." 

"Would you have ascended?" 

His fingers trailed up and down her arm a few times while he considered his answer. "With everything I've done, with everything I've lived through, I'm not sure I'd want to know more... to know everything. I couldn't live with understanding why some things happened." 

She thought about his losing his son, his imprisonment and torture, his divorce, the loss of his family, all of it and she figured that under the circumstances, she thought she could understand why a limited amount of understanding – why just enough understanding – was plenty. 

"Besides," he said, "I'm not sure I would want to watch you, to understand what you were feeling... I... Hell, Sam..." 

She knew what he was trying to say. She shushed him and rubbed her hand across his chest. She wouldn't really want to be intimately acquainted with his pain, either. But to know that her pain, that the possibility of it, was enough to make him draw the line, after everything he’d been through, humbled her and illustrated better than anything else could have, exactly what she meant to him. 

She maneuvered herself until she could look at him, face to face. He looked grave and pained and she knew it was a mix of the imagined and reality that gave him that particular countenance. She grasped his face between her hands. She wanted to say something, anything, but her words were lodged in her throat. So, she poured out her feelings from her eyes and through her fingertips and willed him to understand the depth of emotion she felt for him. 

This wasn’t just any love. 

He licked his lips slowly, his eyelids grew heavier under the weight of her silent admission. He raised his hand to the back of her head and drew her to him. She thought he was going to kiss her, but he pulled her into an embrace so tight, that fitted them together so well, that she knew he was fighting the same battle of words and wills that she was. 

“I don’t want to do this without you,” she murmured. She meant Daniel’s death. She meant everything. She meant life. 

“You don’t have to.”  

It was as close as they’d ever get to come to saying vows, she was afraid. But it felt, in that moment, like they’d shared something profound despite their simple declarations. It was the emotion in the air that sealed it. 

She didn’t see a future in which they married. There was too much between them now to even see where they might be going. And there would be too much insinuation even if they waited until he retired – because surely, he’d retire first. And if he was promoted first, if he got his stars, there was no way… she just couldn’t see a path that led to rings. But that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the way she needed to, the way she would, if he slipped one of those gold bands on her finger. 

She brushed a kiss against his temple. The way his fingertips pressed into her skin was like ten kisses feathered across her flesh. And she knew then that denying them the physical pleasures of one another’s bodies was masochism more than preservation.  

She knew that staying the night was dangerous. It could lead to their destruction. So, she wouldn’t. But it didn’t mean she’d couldn’t let him feel alive, to let herself feel the same. She couldn’t wake up with him in the morning, but she could look at him this night, of all the nights, and whisper one simple entreaty. 


End file.
